Public health initiatives

Healthy Families NZ

Healthy Families NZ is a large-scale initiative that brings community leadership together in a united effort for better health. It aims to make good health easier and more accessible for people, by creating many health promoting environments, where people live, learn, work and play.

Healthy Families NZ is the Government’s flagship prevention platform - a key part of the Government’s wider approach to helping New Zealanders live healthy, active lives.

It has a focus on ten locations across the country, and has the potential to impact the lives of over a million New Zealanders. These ten locations are forming strong prevention partnerships and networks with others working within the field, which presents an opportunity for collaboration between NGOs already working to improve nutrition, increased physical activity, and moderate alcohol intake or helping people to become smokefree.

More information on this initiative, including contact details, is on the Healthy Families NZ website or in the Healthy Families NZ section on the Ministry of Health's website.

Public health workforce development

Two no-cost opportunities for lifting capability in the public health workforce are available.

Fee grants for Massey University’s 2015 Certificate in Public Health

Ministry of Health fees grants and travel subsidies are available to NGO applicants who want to do this part-time, undergraduate, distance learning programme.

Applicants don’t need to have done prior tertiary study and students can customise course content to fit with their specific area of work or interests.

Applications for grants for fully-funded course fees close 12 December 2014, with places issued on first-in first-served basis.

• Apply online (www.publichealthworkforce.org.nz)

Public Health Leadership Programme (PHLP)

This Ministry of Health funded programme allows participants to discover their leadership potential and equips them with practical and tested leadership tools and resources. The six-day leadership component is delivered as three two-day sessions in Wellington or Auckland. PHLP participants are expected to have a good knowledge of public health principles including an understanding of social determinants of health, inequalities in health, how culture influences health, and the significance of the Treaty of Waitangi in health.

Applications close Monday, 16 March 2015.

• Further information (www.publichealthworkforce.org.nz)

Public health service specifications

The Ministry of Health formally consulted on a new Public Health Tier 1 service specification in 2012. Tier 1 specifications are used as part of the service contracting processes, so changes affect many NGO providers. The NGO Council thought it important that community providers had an opportunity to help inform development of the consultation document BEFORE likely changes are identified.

To assist with this process and give NGOs a chance to influence the contracting process, the NGO Council organised four face-to-face events and an online discussion space in conjunction with the Public Health team in National Services Purchasing within the Ministry of Health.

• Compilation of feedback from workshops during pre-consultation engagement (pdf, 835 KB)
• Powerpoint presentation from the workshops (ppt, 2.87 MB) also in smaller PDF format (pdf, 669 KB)
• Read the Public Health Service Specification (www.nsfl.health.govt.nz/apps/nsfl.nsf/pagesmh/346)
• Background on the reasons for change (pdf, 53 KB)